Please refer to the below scenario: A friend of yours assigned a code of 1 to "male" and a code of 2 to "female" on the variable gender.Your friend asked the computer to compute the average score on gender.The computer printout contained the following information: mean = 1.38,standard deviation = .432,median = 1.4 and mode = 1.0.
What is your friend's problem with the computer information?
A) asking for measures of central tendency on continuous variables
B) asking for measures of central tendency and dispersion on nominal variables
C) asking for the mode and the standard deviation in the same report
D) asking for measures of dispersion on continuous variables

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The problem with the computer information is that it is not appropriate to ask for measures of central tendency and dispersion on nominal variables like gender, which only have categories and do not have numerical values that can be averaged or measured for variability. Therefore, the assignment of codes 1 and 2 was arbitrary and does not reflect any numerical meaning, and the mean, standard deviation, median, and mode provide misleading or meaningless information. A better approach would be to use frequency tables or bar charts to show the distribution of categories and their relative frequencies or proportions.

Please Refer to the Below Scenario: a Friend of Yours